Spain: Supreme Court Denies Amnesty to Catalan Leader Puigdemont

Spain, Supreme Court Denies Amnesty to Catalan Leader Puigdemont. Sanchez Government Trembles

Spain’s Supreme Court, the country’s highest judicial body, has refused to grant amnesty to pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemontin exile since the failed attempt at secession in Catalonia in 2017, and has maintained the arrest warrant against him. “The Supreme Court judge has today issued an order declaring the amnesty inapplicable to the crime of embezzlement in the trial against the former President of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont,” the court said in a statement released today, specifying that the arrest warrant against him therefore remains in force.

The amnesty for the former Catalan president was one of the conditions that had allowed Pedro Sánchez to obtain the votes of the independentists in the Cortes. Parliament has done its part by approving the amnesty law, but now this decision risks undermining the stability of the socialist-led government.